


Across the Veil, Into the Void, Forgotten within the Fade

by carmelitilla



Series: The Grey Warrior, the Bastard Prince and the Lady Rogue [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, Kadan, King Alistair, Loss, Love Triangles, Original Character Death(s), Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-11-18
Packaged: 2018-02-26 04:52:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2638766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carmelitilla/pseuds/carmelitilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Elissa died fighting the Archdemon...</p><p>What's in between, before the slide show conclusion of the game and the last scene. I always wondered why they cut right to the end scene....Each character says goodbye in their own way. Honouring the release of DA Inquisition! *Cheers*</p><p>"Does it remind you of Par Vollen, Sten?" She had asked. She had come to find him in the Arl's courtyard. </p><p>"No," he replied looking down at her. The colours of the flowers were too dull, the trees short and young. Just like the humans, the land was cut and preened to separate it from what was natural. The Warden peaked up at him revealing red and glossy eyes. His posture softened. "There is a different kind of beauty here." In them, in her - the creatures might have been weak because of such emotion, but in many ways it was a gift as much as a curse. Their emotion fuelled them past their observable physical limits. He wondered if they somehow sucked the life from this place to fuel their own. It must be draining - maybe it attributed to their short lifespans. Sten thought of Alistair - stupidity might also be a factor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sten

The rough embrace of brick rubbing against his cheek caused Sten to stir. It was hot, too hot, even through his thick qunari skin. He pushed a calloused hand between himself and the brick with a grunt. Righted, he looked through bleary eyes at the sea of black, billowing plumes of smoke raising to eclipse the sky, and red, blood spilling from limp soldiers silenced by the blast. They had all died, every last ally, in the crescendo of the Fifth Blight. Though he saw their purpose fulfilled, even only as a shine against the black now, the still hide of the Archdemon, his heart was heavy. The greatsword protruding from the beast's skull glinted, winking at him.

Sten turned his back on the sword. He would not think of what it meant. He would not find purpose there, only tradgedy. For if she were of the Qun, she would not have been here, on this roof, in the middle of the Blight. 

He picked up his sword and attached it to his back. If things were of the right here she would be thick with young passing on her grace and teaching her wisdom. She would have a mate to fight her wars, and she would be happy. 

Sten stepped over the corpses searching their faces for his comrades. Things were not of the right here, Ferelden was filled with bas. It's men ran and hid leaving their leadership to a girl just barely a woman. They stole her purpose, her happiness.

Sten spotted the elven Crow pushed up against the ledge of the far tower. He dodged his way towards him. He could flee like the witch had in the night. He could leave them all to their fates now that his debt was paid to the Warden. He thought of her emerald glare scolding him even for the thought. 

 _"Things have a place here," she had told him. "Even if that place is not the one they thought it would be, or even the place it should be. It just_ is _, even if it doesn't make sense, and we have to do our best with it." She shook her head pulling her lips into a line. "We cannot abandon a child because it acts out of order, just like we cannot abandon a situation because it is in turmoil. You were meant to be here Sten, you all were - here with me." She nodded. "This is our purpose."_

Sten still wasn't sure he understood what she had meant, but she would never forgive him if he left her companions before they were ready to be left.

_"Think of us as your Ferelden family Sten," she had smiled. "We may not be as neat and tidy as your clan back home, but well we need you, and you need us too."_

Zevran met Sten's eyes with a half smile, clutching his side, even as his blood spilled through his fingers. Had he not been so out of breath, he would have made a joke, something to do with showing the Archdemon His own pink underbelly. Shrapnel from the blast had lodged itself between his ribs. "It is good to see o-our bronze giant is still with us," he breathed. He wished he remembered one of his mother's Dalish gods, he doubted that pompous Marker would help him any.

Sten considered the elf for a moment before taking his hand to see the wound himself. "Can you walk?" He dropped his olive hand. "Your lung may be punctured, a healer must be present when the metal is removed."

"There's no need to move," Wynne said appearing behind them. "I have some lyrium left." She knelt beside them.

"Your timing is - impeccable as always Wynne," Zevran said meeting her pale blue gaze.

The healer said nothing attempting to keep her emotions deep in her belly. She was so very tried and she couldn't shake the sting of failure. She pinched the bridge of her nose when her composer faltered. "Try to keep still," she slipped a small blue vile from her robes. Her hands flared with blue light as she placed them on Zevran's chest. A hiss snaked through his teeth.

Zevran and Wynne became unaware of Sten as the healer slipped deeper into the fade. He thought of the efficiency of healing and whether the Arishok would have use of it. He jerked upwards, startled by a cry that pierced the sky, splitting the dull sounds of the battling below. Sten glared at the assassin but Zevran seemed unmoved. The cry peaked again almost painful in his ears.

As he looked round the cry turned into an agonized scream. In the shadow of the Archdemon a creature convulsed violently. Sten was paralyzed for a moment, confused. She couldn't have survived. "Warden?" Sten called anyway. No, a Warden died with the Archdemon, he had gathered this intel. What could she have become? The roof top was quiet again. Had she heard him? "Warden!?" Sten shouted starting towards the movement. When still no one answered he ran, one hand on his Asala, fearful of what he might find.

No, not fearful, furious. Fury that seeped from his lips as he stumbled towards her. Fury for the vile spawn, fury for her but most damning was the fury he felt towards himself. He would not let the creatures taint her body further. Sten dropped his sword as he passed through the smoke, finally close enough to see the Warden clearly. She was alone, writhing in the pool of blood that spread from the dragon's skull, her hands clawing the brick. Any glimmer of hope Sten had allowed choked. The Warden's eye were squeezed shut as she fought something he could not see, her face showing the pain that echoed across the Fort.

Sten knelt beside her and called to her. When she did not answer he gathered her up into his lap and tried to steady her convulsions. She turned her claws on him instead. "Calm Warden," he pleaded locking her hands at her sides. He whispered to her from the Qun, begging her to wake. The scream that followed cracked his soul as if it were glass.

Over the past year Sten had grown to care deeply for the human. She was resourceful, mindful of circumstance and honourable. She was strong in battle, her weapons like extensions of herself, but more than that, she was kind. He sometimes wondered if she could see into his heart of hearts. She had given him everything she could, even as she did now, taking the demon with her and away from all of them. She was belonging. 

He couldn't bare to see her helpless in his arms, a warrior disgraced by a dishonourable foe. Again, he thought of how she didn't deserve this.

_"Does it remind you of Par Vollen, Sten?" She had asked. She had come to find him in the Arl's courtyard. He scoffed._

_"No," he replied looking down at her. The colours of the flowers were too dull, the trees short and young. Just like the humans, the land was cut and preened to separate it from what was natural. The Warden peaked up at him revealing red and glossy eyes. His posture softened. "There is a different kind of beauty here." In them, in her - the creatures might have been weak because of such emotion, but in many ways it was a gift as much as a curse. Their emotion fuelled them past their observable physical limits. He wondered if they somehow sucked the life from this place to fuel their own. It must be draining - maybe it attributed to their short lifespans. Sten thought of Alistair - stupidity might also be a factor._

_"So it is worth saving?"_

_Sten was quiet for a moment and the Warden shifted so their shoulders touched. She did not put her weight on him, only came close enough for contact, for comfort. "Is that what you think, Warden?"_

_She wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist and crossed her arms. They stood in silence listening to the night._

_"I need you to come with me tomorrow," she looked up at him, her eyes burning._

_He would have anyway. "I gave my word to you in Lothering."_

_The warden smiled weakly her eyes watering again. "I never doubted you, I just, I ask so much, I need to be sure. Stay by my side, Sten, please."_

_Sten grunted in response. "So you plan to leave your king behind." It came out as an accusation but she knew he wasn't cold. "I am to be your first instead."_

_"Not instead," she shivered. "You are my warrior - until the end." The Warden squeezed his hand. "Get some rest, I doubt the Archdemon will loose sleep worrying about battling us."_

Sten looked over the Warden's shoulder into the dragon's unfocused eye - another cry from the Warden.

"You must end her suffering, my friend," whispered Zevran, now supported by Wynne as they found him.

Sten glanced at the healer, but he needn't have. He understood this was the choice of the Warden, there was no coming back from this.

"She is beyond my help," Wynne confirmed anyway. She closed her eyes to block this memory of her friend, perhaps closer to a daughter. She would not remember her like this.

Sten locked the Warden's wrists with one large hand leaning down to rest his forehead on hers. He dipped his hand into the blood and pulled free the Warden's dagger. She squirmed beneath him, drenched in sweat. "Panahadean -" Sten hesitated squeezing his eyes shut against the ache that dissuaded any pretence of apathy. If he was vanguard to his people, than Saria was vanguard of his heart. "Kadan -" he admitted in a hoarse whisper. 

"Sten?!" The Warden called hoarsely. Her eyes sprung open but they were not emeralds. They had narrowed to slits and yellowed like the Archdemon's. "Sten, where are you, I can't see you," she panicked.

"I am here," Sten pleaded. Her dagger shook in his grasp.

"He's inside me, Sten. The demon, He wants control, I won't, I won't -" The Warden's back arched as the Archdemon threatened her, his teeth clenched around her heart.

Zevran knelt beside them for the first time heartbroken. He tried to take the dagger from Sten but the giant's snarling reply stopped him.

"I don't think I'll make it out of this one, Sten," the Warden breathed. 

Sten would not tell her otherwise. "You fought well, Kadan." 

"At least now we won't have to meet on the battlefield," she whispered. She reached for his hand in the darkness, her fingertips grazing cold silverite. "Maker forgive me," she grasped the collar of his armour.

Sten cradled the Warden's shoulders.

"I'm glad it's you," she whispered fighting to remain still. She screamed as the demon reared in her again. His roar from within challenged her agony, but before she could be overwhelmed, the dagger reached through her and silenced Him.

"He will admit defeat now," she told her warrior. She wondered why she felt no pain. "He'll go with me, or I'll go with him."

The Warden blinked her emeralds returning to her and looked up into Sten’s eyes for once unguarded. Sten let go of the dagger. The Warden's eyes spoke to him a thousand words, filled with grace and sadness, even as she heaved great laboured breaths. He fought his heart to calm. He did not want to watch this. She reached up and touched his cheek. He leaned into her hand, a tear running between her fingertips. 

"What will happen to them?" She asked noticing the pair behind him.

"We will be well, my sweet warden." Zevran told her, a tear slipped over his tattoo.

"You gave us a second chance," Wynne offered placing a hand on her knee.

The Warden didn't hear them. Panic pierced her submission. She fought the fatigue grasping the hilt of the dagger. The Archdemon, now returned in the form of an Old God called to her. "He's ready, Sten, he wants to go." Her companions were out there, alone and unprotected. "I don't have time, I-I can't save them."

Sten took her hand gently from the dagger. "You already have, Kadan," he soothed brushing her matted hair from her face. She calmed again. "Find peace."

"Peace," she repeated. She looked at the Old God before her standing on the ledge of Fort Drakon. He was more a shadow against the light. He extended His hand to her. He would not take her to the Maker, but wherever they went, they were now equals."Take my body to Alistair. I hope he is not angry -" the Warden's chest fell.

The world around him returned to Sten. Zevran placed a hand on his shoulder, he was too tired to protest. He adjusted the Warden's weight and pulled her up with him against his chest. Slowly he made his way back to the interior, careful not to joust her. He knew she was only a husk, a body divide of a once glorious soul, as was the Qun, but he would fulfil this last request.

That night in the estate he would sit with her body and the rest of them. Then they would retire, each and every one of them but one other. 

He would learn what it is to feel human emotion, so strong that it litters the face and contorts the heart. He would understand, and he would disappear into the night.

Zevran made sure to pick up Asala before following after him.


	2. Alistair

Alistair drew his blade out of the squealing darkspawn with his shield and silenced it with a last sure stroke. He had seen the column of fire that rose up from Fort Drakon and thus threw himself harder into the battle. Harder still than he thought possible, but he knew he was able, she had told him and he would be great if only to remain so in her eyes. The new king looked up from the corpse below him to see the evil creatures dropping their weapons all around him. His soldiers finished what they could reach as the darkspawn horde fled towards the gates of Denerim. He let out a triumphant cry and his fellows joined him, blood covered but undefeated.

"Victory is ours!" He called. "We have won my brothers!"

Euphoria spurred his soul lifting a weight from his shoulders he had carried so long he had forgotten it was there. Alistair smiled at Leliana leaning on a barricade to his left, then to Oghren, who was tackled by his Warden's mabari. The dwarf let out a deep wheezy laugh.

The soldiers of Ferelden - dwarf, elf and human alike - raised their weapons over their heads. "Long live King Alistair!" Shouted a voice from the crowd. "Long live the king!"

Alistair bowed playfully to the chanting before raising his hands to quiet them. "Today, mankind-" A woman's cry cut Alistair's speech draining the blood from his face.

Before him the men began to kneel, their heads bent low, looking past him to the heart of the city. He couldn't turn around. What were they doing? Leliana appeared at his side slipping her hand into his. Alistair drew away sharply, meeting her eyes, confused by the comfort. Tears upon her cheeks, the tiny rouge looked to the stone.

"Your Majesty," called Zevran over his right shoulder. Alistair held his breath and turned to the elf. "The Archdemon is vanquished, but -" Alistair followed Zevran's gaze to see Sten walking slowly towards them, so much so that Alistair might have thought time was coming to a halt. The qunari did not look at him, his head held in shame, then many things happened at once.

Leliana rushed from Alistair's side and into Wynne's arms. The witch was clad only in her robes, her cloak lain over a bundle cradled by Sten.

 

Alistair watched petrified as the giant drew closer.

 

 

Closer.

 

 

 

Closer still. 

 

 

 

 

A metre from him and a soft hand slipped from the bundle. It was clenched around a rose, his rose.

 

 

 

 

 

Alistair shook his head closing the gap between them. His eyes stung, water rising around him. He took the hand unwilling to connect it to its owner. Why was it cold? Somewhere in the distance Alistair thought he heard the Chant. The Maker's followers around him joined Leliana in the verses. He pulled the hood from over the bundle.

A sob broke from his lips as he looked upon her half closed green eyes. Alistair slid his arms under Sten's and took his Warden, kneeling under her weight to hug her in the mud.

"No," he told her as if forbidding her from leaving him. Over and over he said it between rasps of her name. "It's not true."

_"Alistair, you have to stay here. You're going to be King," she'd ordered. She was so cute when she for stern with him. Her eyes always playful when when her lips pressed into a thin line. It wasn't so today, not among the dead and the darkspawn. Today her eyes were darker, bracing for calamity, sorrowful._

_"Saria, love, I can't, you can't-" Alistair stammered taking her hands. "If Riordan-"_

_Saria cupped his cheek gently, her contact calmed him in an instant. "Listen to me Alistair, my family died to put me in this moment," her voice broke, a single tear betraying her to him. "I understand now why the Maker took them from me, this is my destiny, be it by His will, to you, or to them, I will return.”_

_"Fergus may yet live -" he begged._

_"No, not after Ostagar."_

The way she had said it made him believe. But as he held her cold shoulders he felt consumed by guilt. Guilt that would become pure unadulterated heartbreak mirrored in Fergus’s eyes as he spoke with him not three days later. For Alistair had decided he was what she had left. Their love would be her prize for all the heart ship the Maker had bestowed on her. She would be queen, they would live together forever.

"What about me? Why did you not return to me?" He begged pressing his cheek to her's. Morrigan had run and so they had fought. She had not chosen him to accompany her, so they had fought. These last few weeks all they did was fight but he had never doubted her warmth as he did now.

_"I love you," she kissed him briefly as Zevran, Sten and Wynne formed up behind her. Her cheeks were damp from goodbyes but before him she was strong, she squared her shoulders becoming his commander instead of his fiance._

All he had done was nod. Why hadn't he told her? It was too short. He couldn't remember the last brush of her lips, the sensation. He had been so angry.

_"I'll be back soon," she tried to reassure him, one white lie, her smile was brilliant and he locked it in his memory._

Meric intruded Alistair's cloud of grief, nudging his shoulder with a too large snout. When Alistair ignored him he tugged on a loose piece of leather escaping his plate armour. Alistair picked his Warden up, gently, and her companions fell into line behind him - a fitting funeral procession. One by one the people stood and bowed as he made his way to the Arl's destroyed estate - destroyed like everything else.

Meric stopped amongst the rubble before the entrance. He howled, a cry that was joined one by one by his fellows, drowning the crackle of the burning in mourning.

Later, Alistair would sit before Eamon, listening to his ramblings as he argued with Anora twirling _her_  rose between his thumb and forefinger. They would ask his opinion and he would agree one way, or the other, thinking of what his Warden would say, the flower almost connecting them through the veil. 

Once he grew old his men would nickname him the Silent King, gossiping of his preference to remain within and so. They believed he would sit, over-looking Denerim for hours, smirking when the sun set behind the clouds, all the time listening. Some would say he heard his lost lover in his mind, that he was succumbing to the ailments of an old warrior, but others knew. 

The Silent King waited every night - he was listening for the Calling, for it would return him to his Warden. 


	3. Morrigan

Morrigan knew the moment the Warden was gone. She was perched on a thick rock watching Denerim when Fort Drakon erupted. It was as if someone had kicked her in the abdomen. She was forced to double over and wretch over the cliff face. 

“Stupid girl,” she whispered as her breathing calmed. She pushed herself up. She turned her back on the city and started towards the Waking Sea. With Flemeth gone and Alistair set to rule, she intended to set as much distance between she and Ferelden as possible. She was too much of a skeptic to believe the new king would keep his word not to seek her out. 

Such thoughts brought her back to the night the Warden had refused her proposal. Saria's eyes were round like saucers when she had told her that she was leaving. 

What did she expect? That she would watch her die? For she knew she would die and look, she was correct. The girl was blinded by her ideals for the moral good. It was not her fault that she was not present during the battle, it was logical. She was preserving her own life. That is all she expected from any of the others and they should have expected such from her. The hurt in the Warden’s eyes was needless. She was the hero in this wretched tale not Morrigan. Once her mission could not be completed it only made sense for her to go. What was the Warden to her? Certainly not a friend like she had said once before, not if she was to senselessly throw away her life. Certainly not a sister. 

Morrigan stopped. Images of the Warden came unbidden to her mind. Laughing like they did around her private fire while the others prattled around camp. Betting on kills and sharing predatory glances, blood splattered in victory. Sitting in silence, after she ventured into the fade for the young arl, on the back of Bohdan’s wagon, trudging towards the Brecilian forest. A hand on her knee the night her mother was vanquished. A smile above a gift - her mother's grimoire. 

Morrigan drew her staff and hurled a fireball into the rockface. “Stupid girl!” She cried firing two more.

After a moment Morrigan was reduced to feeling like a child. She should not have allowed herself to become so attached to the girl. What did she know of love and companionship to have dabbled in it so deeply? She was a solitary creature and she should have remained so. 

Morrigan pushed on until the sun set well past the horizon. She took refuge then in a wolf den, shifting to sleep among the pack that called it home. In the fade she sat with the Warden, or as close a familiar of the woman as she could conjure. She couldn't be sure, she didn't want to be. There they spoke as if Denerim had ever happened. There they spoke as sisters.


	4. Fellow Rogues

" Leliana," called Zevran softly, he did not want to startle her meditations. 

The bard looked up after a moment, her eyes shinning anew, swollen and red. 

"Come dear girl, you must rest, let me take you." Zevran held out his hand. Leliana rose with a sniff and blew out the candle on the alter. She took the elf's hand and wrapped his arm around her settling into the crook under it. She didn't look up when they passed through the market to Arl's estate. She knew the shadows were from the pillars of smoke yet rising from Fort Drakon. Like Saria the sun had gone. 

"Our Warden would not wish you to be so sad in her passing, Leliana," Zevran whispered as he held the door to the kitchens open for her.

"I wouldn't know, we never spoke of her passing," she snapped back. She was hurt that the Warden had not warned her, hurt that she did not given her the opportunity to change her mind. "I'm sorry Zevran - I just can't, she's gone." 

"I know lovely girl, sit I will fetch someone to cook for us." 

"No, I'm not hungry." 

Zevran cursed in Antivan. He did not relish playing nursemaid to a bunch of sobbing children. People died, they died all the time, good people more often than not. He had known the moment he had met the Warden that she would be dead by the years end, and yet she had convinced him to help her, to fight the clock. She saved him, damn that beautiful girl, and therefore she was worth it. The rest of them however, selfish like him, cold like him, deadly like him - Zevran shivered remembering Saria's fear for them, grasping the dagger in her stomach because she believed she had not done enough. He had vowed then that he would see them off in her honour. 

"Why did she have to be a martyr, Zev?" 

Zevran whistled for a servant before answering her. "We've been over this, Lily." 

"But this is not what the Maker showed me!" Leliana picked a dirty plate from the table and threw it at the fireplace. It shattered against the cooking pot with a crack promptly sending the just arrived servant back through the doors she had entered.

"By all means, I'm sure a few more plates won't be missed after all the ransacking and pillaging." Zevran smirked. 

"What do you care? You've your freedom now that she's dead, why don't you just leave?" Leliana was upon Zevran in an instant. She threw him up against the wall. 

"Lily," Zevran tried to calm her gripping her wrists on his shoulders. "You need to be still."

" You don't understand! You never loved her like I did!" 

Zevran flipped Leliana so fast she could only blink, her furry replaced by shock. The assassin's eyes showed how thin his veil of control was, but he did not scold her, only watched. 

Leliana began to sob anew and the elf released her. 

"Our Warden was never without reason," he told the bard looking away. "Pine for her if you must, but I saw her leave with peace, I would let it remain so."

Leliana shook her head. 

"I do not assume to know of love," Zevran rebutted. "But I know of feelings you cannot understand, of motives that drive people to insanity." He looked back, meeting her eyes with solemn ferocity. "She could have made me insane, lovely girl, as she could have many others. Be thankful she only allowed that prize to Alistair." 

"Oh Zev," Leliana threw her arms around the elf and wept into his shoulder. She longed for her lost friend's comfort, her soft words and gentle hands. She pulled back and caught a glimmer of sadness retreating from Zevran's gaze. She had connected them and now they were all lost without her. Zevran was worst of all, everything he had he had given up for the Warden. Leliana ran her fingers down his cheeks. "I'm so sorry, Zev." 

"Lil-" Zevran was cut off when Leliana placed a finger over his lips. Her soul was bare to him through her eyes. They were equal in loneliness. Zevran leaned forward and kissed her gently. Seeking solace within the elf, Leliana fell against him deepening his kiss. Begging for comfort, for love and for her burdens to be taken she broke the kiss only to take his hand and lead him to her chamber. There they ravaged each other, taking no time to even close the door. They continued until they were weak with exhaustion for only then, when no thought could disturb them, could they rest. Together they fell into a deep black sleep, where even their Warden could not intrude.


	5. Oghren

For the first time since he could remember, Oghren did not want to drink. That was to say he wanted to, and he did, but the ale did not make him feel better. He read the note the Warden had left him again.

OGHREN, A LUCKY MAN FINDS HIMSELF LOVED BY A WOMAN ONCE IN HIS LIFE. YOU HAVE BEEN LOVED BY THREE.

DON'T FORGET ABOUT FELSI YOU STUBBORN BRUTE.

CHEERS TO YOUR HAPPINESS,

SARIA

Oghren laughed at her bluntness again. He knew she had picked it up from him.

"Typical woman," he grunted to Meric curled below him. "Even returned to the stone, she's trying to order me around!" Oghren crumpled the note and threw it in the fire.

Meric growled.

"Heh, I never said I wouldn't do it. A dwarf needs to assert himself, she was your master, not mine. "

Meric whimpered.

"Ah nug shit." Oghren reached down and patted the mabari on the head. "I miss her too, boy."

Meric barked in agreement causing Oghren to jump, spilling his ale. He looked at the puddle on the ground with a frown. "Heh," he grunted. He held up his glass before pouring the rest on the ground. "Cheers to you, Warden."


End file.
